Corruption: Sanitize public sector treasury management practice in Nigeria

The Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mohammed Tahir Monguno on Thursday tasked practitioners of treasury management and Fellows of the Chartered Institute of Treasury Management (CITM) to bring their expertise to bear by sanitizing the management of public funds in Nigeria.

Hon. Monguno, who sponsored the CITM (Establishment) Act, gave the charge during the induction ceremony of Fellows of the Institute.

He said: “Having a new Institute, particularly a research-based entity has defined your role and the task ahead of you all.

“Your mandate here today is to be certified and inducted into a pool of critical thinkers with hands-on and practical suggestions and solutions to the myriads of challenges confronting our nation’s economy.

“Governance will not be complete without your inputs as technocrats to drive the process; politicians would not be able to deliver on their mandates without your support. Likewise, dishonest politicians would not be able to game and compromise the system without you showing them the way and the loopholes,” Hon. Monguno said.

He, therefore, tasked the pioneer inductees to use the topic of his presentation: ‘Managing Growth and Development in a distressed economy: The Role of a Treasury Manager’, as a research topic and submit findings to the Registrar for assessment.

While addressing the inductees, NITM President/Acting Chairman, Mr Nwude-Chu Emmanuel, said having come thus far in achieving the task of having a legal charter for the Council, fellows of the Institute must work hard to uphold the tenets of professionalism obtainable elsewhere in the world.

“May I remind us that the vision and mission of the CITM are to build world-class treasury professionals that are conversant with complexities of modern treasury and could competently and efficiently manage public, corporate and private treasuries as the case may be.

“Consequently, the theme for this induction titled: ‘Sustainable Treasury –A Catalyst Toward Virile Economy’ is timely and after this programme, each and every one of us would have realized that the modern treasurer is a hunter of opportunities for increased efficiency…”, he said.

In his remarks, CITM Registrar, Adeola Adedoyin said all over the world, there is virtually no country that is free from daily problems of managing the nation’s economic affairs and the well-being of its citizenry and populace.

According to him, “the difference has been the mindset at orientation right from cradle to be result oriented rather than being fault finders with a judgmental spirit.”

“No government in any country has all it takes to move and accelerate the economic growth and development of its geopolitical territory. It is the strategic initiatives and unrelenting positive contributions of all and sundry at the sub-sector of the national economy driven by patriotism and loyalty to the fatherland that has been the catalyst of economic breakthroughs in today’s revered “advanced or developed” economies around the world.

“The Journey so far The foundation of ClTM came through the thought process of several like-minded individuals having a common goal and curious enough to find a solution to the common problem of impacting cash management with treasury management initiatives as a measure of safe guiding the treasury.

“This can be achieved by the idea of an organization that could spearhead the establishment and raise a national consciousness of accountability, transparency, prudence and probity in public offices as a multi-purpose vehicle for solving our economic woes,” he said.

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